Cephalopod dynamic camouflage
Abstract
Everyone knows what camouflage is and how it works. And many people (some scientists included) think chameleons are the masters of color change. Wrong on both counts. In this primer, I provide an overview of recent work on the mechanisms and principles of rapid adaptive camouflage of cephalopods - octopus, cuttlefish and squids. These strange but capable marine invertebrates can camouflage themselves against almost any background, a feat well appreciated by Aristotle, and one never mastered by any land animal. Yet their ability to quickly alter their body patterns on different visual backgrounds poses a vexing challenge: how to pick the correct pattern amongst their repertoire. The cephalopod ability to change appropriately requires a visual system that can rapidly assess complex visual scenes and produce the motor output - the neurally controlled body patterns - that achieves camouflage. The body patterns themselves must be well designed and sophisticated enough to defeat the visual prowess of diverse predators - teleost fishes, diving birds and marine mammals. Curiously, the quantification and experimental testing of camouflage principles have scarcely been addressed by biologists. By studying the cephalopods, we may have stumbled onto some general principles of animal coloration.
- Publication:
-
Current Biology
- Pub Date:
- June 2007
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.cub.2007.03.034
- Bibcode:
- 2007CBio...17.R400H